The agony of the rat or the slaughter of a calf remains present in thought not through pity but as the zone of exchange between man and animal in which something of one passes into the other. - Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

CFP: Towards a new thinking of human/animal relations: queers, monsters and zombies

The Italian quarterly Liberazioni, an antispeciesist journal, represents an important open ground to the debate on "animal rights" in Italy. It appeared for first time on the web in 2004 and in a paper format since summer 2010 (issue number 15 is in preparation right now). The magazine wishes to help nonhuman animals to cease being considered as property which is a fundamental step towards the ending of the inequality between nonhuman and human animals. The scope of Liberazioni is also to promote a lively debate on "The Question of the Animal" and to this aim, it collaborates with other scholars, institutions and journals in various countries with joint projects and translations.

"Towards a new thinking of human/animal relations: queers, monsters and zombies"

Traditionally, antispeciesism has promoted politics of identity to "raise" the status of the nonhuman animals and to liberate them from human oppression. Nonhuman animals have been considered "right holders" only, and only when, they showed to possess some of the traits assumed to be quintessentially human. Subsequently, a different antispeciesist version has been developed, which share the same aims of the previous one (enhanced consideration of the nonhuman animals and liberation), but promotes politics of difference. This perspective, which is based on contemporary continental thought, challenges speciesism through a multiplication of the differences in the two arbitrary fields of the "Human" and the "Animal" and by rejecting the idea that differences can be ranked on a hierarchy scale. More recently, such a view has evolved into a novel thinking of nonhuman and human animals as inhabiting a shared space of embodied indistinction where the boundaries between creatures and species are blurred by the acceptance of their common vulnerability and mortality. Aim of this call for papers is to investigate from different points of view the nature and the characteristics of such a space through the analysis of creatures that overcome the traditional boundaries of genders, species and identity. This is a particularly difficult task since it requires to think outside the "classical" framework grounded on the self and the subject and, therefore, requires a common effort from scholars in Animal Studies to start mapping such a new territory of freedom and liberation.

Contributions on the following issues are welcomed:

1. History of the evolution of the antispeciesist thought from identity to difference and indistinction.

2. How to think nonhuman and human animals outside the boundaries of subjectivity.

3. How these new ways to think human and nonhuman animals would change the praxis of liberation.

4. Hybrids/monsters/zombies in literature, arts and cinema from ancient mythology to modern and contemporary works.

5. Intersections of Animal Studies with Cultural,Women and Queer Studies.

6. Genealogy of the creation of monsters and the political advantages for the dominant élites.

7. Analysis of the concept of metamorphosis, of the resulting creatures and of their literary and artistic representations.

8. Definition of a new concept of veganism, which is not anymore viewed as a life-style, but rather as a way to call into questions traditionally accepted boundaries.

9. Analysis of the technical procedures to create hybrids and the history of the sciences which have led to a blurring of the biological boundaries from Darwin onwards.

10. The use of the monster-concept to maintain the status quo.

Papers should be submitted in one of the following languages: Italian, English, or French. The deadline for paper submission is 30 September 2014. Papers should not be longer than 9.000 words and can contain pictures (not more than 5 and with permission to be reprinted obtained by the authors) which will be published in black and white. The papers will be peer-reviewed and then, if accepted, published either on the journal (in Italian â€“ translation, if needed, will be provided by the editorial board) and the website or only on the website at the discretion of the editorial board. We do not provide additional editorial guidelines at this stage, since all the accepted papers will be then formatted according to the journal's rules by members of the editorial board.